


All Your Tomorrows Start Here

by umadoshi (Ysabet)



Category: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Genre: Adopted Sibling Incest, Canon Disabled Character, Community: smallfandomfest, F/M, POV First Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 00:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2046165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabet/pseuds/umadoshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>George is no more immortal than I am, and she probably figured that out even younger than I did. The pair of us hit puberty fully aware we were gonna die someday, and confused as all hell by the way people around us acted like they could live forever if they just played it safe enough. But then again, there was no way we could've hung onto that ignorance ourselves. Being raised by people who got lost in grief over their dead six-year-old and never found themselves enough to love </i>you<i> strips away all of your innocence sooner rather than later.</i></p>
<p>
  <i>Phillip died young. People died all the time. One of those days, death was going to come for us, too--probably literally, since we live in a world where it's up and walking around.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>It took longer to grasp that we might not die together.</i>
</p>
<p>Set seven years before <i>Feed</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Your Tomorrows Start Here

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Small Fandoms Fest on Livejournal.
> 
> Prompt: the first time Georgia realized she could (and would probably) lose Shaun because he couldn’t resist poking things with sticks (and possibly we/you almost died sex)
> 
> Beta work by wildpear.
> 
> Title from Neil Gaiman's short story for "New Age" on the Tori Amos album _Strange Little Girls_.
> 
> Content warning: reference to canonical child death.

There's a running joke about people in my line of work: "Irwins think they're immortal". That's hilarious coming from people who spend their lives cowering indoors--not "ha ha" hilarious, but the kind that makes me want to deck them. It's no less accurate than the "Irwins are suicidal" crap, but it's a whole lot stupider.

George makes those "death wish" cracks too, but she's allowed. She's no more immortal than I am, and she probably figured that out even younger than I did. The pair of us hit puberty fully aware we were gonna die someday, and confused as all hell by the way people around us acted like they could live forever if they just played it safe enough. But then again, there was no way we could've hung onto that ignorance ourselves. Being raised by people who got lost in grief over their dead six-year-old and never found themselves enough to love _you_ strips away all of your innocence sooner rather than later.

Phillip died young. People died all the time. One of those days, death was going to come for us, too--probably literally, since we live in a world where it's up and walking around.

It took longer to grasp that we might not die together. Sure, we knew that intellectually, but I never really had to think about it too much, what with knowing my odds of going out first were so high, and George never really stopped and processed it because _she knew it intellectually_ , and for her, that's the key thing.

We got our B-class licenses when we were sixteen, of course, and I started going out into the field with Mom a lot more than I had been, since I was legally allowed out there and she didn't have to sneak me around anymore. That meant she let me off the leash more, pushing boundaries by turning me loose to do everything I possibly could on my own, within--and sometimes outside of--the letter of the law.

I wasn't about to argue. I loved every minute of it, and in some ways it even felt good being out there with her. I'd already spent half my life knowing our parents didn't particularly love us, but I was off in the world with a woman who defines the whole concept of Irwins, and she was teaching me just about everything she could.

And in Mom's defense, risk is what Irwins _do_. She couldn't mentor me without letting me run headlong into danger that'd make most parents have heart attacks.

But she's _Stacy Mason_ , and she took it too far--not that I thought so until the first time I found myself staring my own death in the face. I'd been that close to zombies at least a couple dozen times before, but none of those encounters had spiked fear into me right through the adrenaline high. None of them made me think, right down in my guts, _I am going to die, right here, right now_. But there I was, with Mom filming, and I didn't even screw up in any major way--I checked the footage later to be sure.

I just had a few seconds of shitty luck, and that was all it took: a few seconds to twist my ankle, and a few more for that zombie to take advantage and grab me.

It latched onto my arm with filthy fingers and crusted fingernails, and it tore my shirt...and it scratched me, or maybe the scratch was already there. Either way, I was bleeding just a little when the impact from Mom's shot blew the thing backwards off me.

I was _bleeding_ , and Mom kept her cameras running while she pushed a med kit and a testing unit over to me. I kept my expression stoic while I tore the sleeve off my shirt entirely, baring the shallow scratch, and slapped a cotton pad soaked with bleach against it.

And then I took the goddamn test--not an absolute top-of-the-line unit, but a high-quality model that consistently gives reliable results. I didn't even realize how tense Mom was until I saw her shoulders relax a tiny bit, in unison with mine, when the light settled on a steady green.

But all I could think while the lights cycled, leading to that moment of relief, was that George wasn't there. Mom was going to put a bullet through my skull, just like she did for the brother George and I never met, and I might as well die alone for all the difference _her_ presence was going to make.

**********

"How could she?" George demanded after Mom and I got home, as soon as we were alone together. It was rhetorical...and it wasn't. I could let the question hang there, let the answer be the simple fact that Mom's a ratings hound and not much gets higher ratings than blood--and whose blood it was didn't matter.

That was a fact, but it wasn't the truth. Everything about the way George was holding herself was a plea to let it stand. And I couldn't. We'd both know it was a lie, and George might be able to swallow it, but it'd poison her if she did.

"It wasn't Mom's fault, George," I said. "It was all me."

It's been years since those words came out of my mouth, and I've never asked George exactly what went through her mind, but I saw the result. I heard it in the way her voice changed halfway through crying out, "You could have _died_ , Shaun!"

Her anger didn't soften, but it twisted in on itself. We stared at each other while George paled, going stiff and brittle as she heard what she was saying and understood, right down to her bones, what it meant.

I could've died, and she would've been alone.

I thought for a second she was going to lunge at me, and I didn't know if that meant coming at me with her anger or her desolation. If she'd hit me it would've sucked, because George may not be as strong as me but she sure as hell knows how to throw a punch; if she'd moved to kiss me I would've let her do it and anything else she wanted. Maybe it would've been messed up, but I was already having my first real experience of how nearly dying can make you physically ache to have sex, to burn away that stress and fear in someone's arms by reminding yourself of how alive you are. George and I had been having sex for about five months by then, long enough for me to have a crystal-clear idea of what it'd be like to enact that classic kind of scene, tearing each other's clothes off or maybe not even bothering before fucking each other silly.

But she didn't take a single step closer. She just stared from behind her sunglasses, swallowing over and over, clenching and relaxing her hands. She didn't say another word before she pivoted and walked out.

I didn't know then that it was the only time she'd ever walk out on me like that. Whatever she did to herself while she was shut away in her room, processing what had happened, she did so effectively that she never reacted that way again.

In the years since then I've brushed up against death over and over, and sometimes George gets mad, and sometimes she gets scared, and yeah, sometimes she fucks me. That eviscerated vulnerability, though? That was a one-time deal, something she buried down deep and never let me bring up again. I only tried a couple of times, because she shut me down so hard--and the truth was, I didn't really push. I couldn't stand the thought of her being alone without me and I didn't know what the hell to do about it.

**********

I didn't see her again until dinner, when Mom called us down to eat. I didn't move until I heard George's bedroom door open and close and her footsteps on the stairs, signaling that she wasn't coming to get me. That didn't mean anything. Sometimes she came into my room on her way, tousling my hair or running her fingers across my shoulder before we obeyed Mom's summons, but it was nowhere near always.

I took the stairs two at a time, earning myself a witheringly-arched eyebrow over George's sunglasses when I arrived in the dining room. "You sound like an elephant stampede," she said.

"I'm lighter on my feet than you," I countered.

"Proportionally, yeah, but I weigh _half_ as much as you and don't throw myself at the stairs, so I sure don't sound like that."

I snorted. "Sorry, did you just engage in hyperbole? _You_? The only time I'm twice your weight is if you're buck naked and I've got as many guns on me as fingers."

"Saying I weigh two-thirds as much as you doesn't have the same ring."

Mom interrupted before we got worked up to a really good bicker. "Children, hush. It's been a day. Eat your casserole before it gets cold."

I shot George a sharp glance before she could snarl--she had a mutinous look on her face, and if she and Mom got into it with George all off-balance and pissed at Mom for enabling me, it'd turn ugly fast.

George glowered back at me, but she followed my lead and shut up. We ate dutifully, tidied the dishes away and cleaned the kitchen, and fled back upstairs.

In the hallway she touched my elbow and nudged me into her room ahead of her, instead of relegating me to mine. By then I was primed for a fight; she'd fumed her way through dinner, building up so much tension between us that I was cool with the idea of a shouting match.

Instead, she sat on her bed and pulled her sunglasses off, rubbing her eyes. I sat beside her and fidgeted, waiting for her to snap.

She didn't. She just stayed there beside me, eyes shut, for what felt like forever but was probably more like five minutes. And finally, in total silence, she looked at me.

If I'd ever needed proof of how much George loves me, that look would've more than covered it. It wasn't resignation I read in her face. It was acceptance, and seeing it hurt, because I saw her loving me and accepting what that meant--how much pain she was accepting along with _me_.

I could _want_ to stop being so impulsive, want to stop itching for adrenaline and the constant rush and thrill of what I do, but I couldn't promise her that--and I'd be stupid to try. I was still alive because I was trained and knew what I was doing. Reducing the number of times I went into the field would also reduce my chances of coming back alive. And George is as much Stacy Mason's kid as I am, so she knows that. She knows what I am, and why I've been able to come back to her every time so far.

"George," I said, and then I stopped, because that was all I had. Her. Her name. Her love, and the pain it was causing her--pain that made me wish she'd screamed at me instead. I would've had an answer for that.

"Shut up," she said into the silence, and kissed me, taking away my need to find words for her.

We lay down together and she touched me for a long, long time, but she didn't resist when I eventually took her hands between mine to still them, and then pulled her against me. We pressed our bodies together until I felt like her heart was pounding right inside my chest.

I tried to imagine her heart beating after mine stopped.

I couldn't.

All I could do was hold on, and when she felt me inhale to speak again, she didn't let me get a word out. "Don't, Shaun." She kissed my neck because that was where her mouth was, then sat up, leaving my heart to beat alone.

I wanted to pull her right back down and not let go for hours; I needed the comfort of her body against mine so badly that I could barely think about anything else. Maybe I needed it more than she needed the space.

But maybe I didn't. And I knew--had always known--that George was never going to accuse me of being selfish for doing what I wanted with my life, so the least I could do was not be selfish about this too.

I wasn't selfless enough to keep from saying "I love you" as I let her go.

There was an unsettling gentleness in her answering laugh, like she was trying to de-weaponize her hurt instead of lashing back. She just said, "Tell me something I don't know, dumbass."

"I thought you knew everything."

She gave me a flicker of a smile. "That sounds boring as hell." Leaning back over me, she kissed my forehead. "Do you need to sleep here tonight?"

I wanted to say no. At least, I wished I could say no. In the strictest sense, I didn't _need_ it; I just wanted it badly enough and knew it would do me enough good that I felt like I did. If I let myself be totally literal instead of listening to what George was really asking, I could tell her I'd be fine without sleeping beside her.

Instead, I admitted, "Yeah."

George nodded slowly. "Okay. Just...I can't talk about this right now."

"Deal."

She nodded again and got up. "I'm taking a shower."

That was definitely not an invitation. And she'd already beaten it into my head that if she undressed in front of me with no sexual context, _that_ wasn't an invitation either unless she said so, so ordinarily she would've ditched some or most of her clothes before leaving her room. But tonight she didn't. She disappeared into the bathroom without another word, fully dressed, like she didn't feel safe being at all exposed with me right then.

I knew it wasn't "with me". Not really. It was "with anyone", but that didn't keep it from stinging a little. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it--and that just left room for the memory of that fucking zombie's fingers scraping my skin.

I choked down the bile that was burning the back of my throat, and I got the hell out of George's room. I was _too_ safe in there, more vulnerable than I could afford to be if I didn't want to make her feel like she had to take care of me. So I went into my own room long enough to collect myself, and then headed down to the living room, where our parents were reading.

"Hey, guys," I said. "Mind if I use the TV for some gaming?" I snagged my headset off a shelf and brandished it. "Quietly?"

It was a normal enough request, since the TV was way bigger than the monitor on my desk, and besides, I'm sure all the parenting manuals are full of some shit about "if your kid almost dies, she or he will need to spend time with their family". Dad gave me a jovial smile, and Mom nodded without looking up from her tablet.

"Great." I jacked my headset in and starting scrolling through games, choosing the best one to tune out my "family" while surrounding myself with them, leaving George as much space as I could. I picked a first-person shooter, tweaked my in-game settings so George could see what I was doing through a widget on her system--complete with the blinking notification that said she could message me and override the game at any point--and settled in to play.

In the virtual world on the TV, where no one died forever, I found a target and took aim.


End file.
